Monday, February 2, 2009

Weekend workouts

Friday night, I felt much better than I did on Friday morning, but I wasn't in the mood for doing a lot of miles. I was afraid that doing that would leave me too tired for what I knew would be a tough skiing weekend.

Instead, I did interval work - 10 x 1 minute at 6:40 pace. I would have gone faster, but the treadmill I had available at the time only went to 9mph.

Saturday, with a lot of new snow on the mountain, I skied really hard. I led a coach's clinic in the morning and we skied off trail - in untouched snow in the trees. I was in snow up to mid-thigh level at places and it was a blast. I then skied in the trees with my gaggle of girls all day long. We did some tree runs that I'd been unwilling to try earlier in the year, when we had less snow. Everyone was exhausted by the end of the day.

Sunday morning, I led another clinic in the trees before I started teaching the kids. Then, I took my group to our resort's other mountain. We skied there all day, but about 1:30, I noticed the girls getting really tired. So, I started to back off on the terrain we were skiing to keep them from getting hurt. It's really important to pay attention to how tired the students are in a ski lesson. It's very common on Sunday afternoons to see hands drop, butts drop, ankles un-flex, and falls increase. When I see those things happening, it's time to back off and ski easy for the rest of the day. The girls never complain when I make that decision, because they know they're tired, even if they haven't admitted it out loud.

I took one hard fall yesterday afternoon when I came around a tree and caught my skis on an exposed tree root. I basically did a somersault and I hyper-flexed my right ankle a bit. I skied the rest of the day, but it was a bit tender later. I iced the ankle last night, and I was able to do my lifting this morning.

My workout this morning included snatches, squats and step-ups, and if any lifts would bother the ankle, those lifts would do it. But, I got through everything just fine. Tonight, I'm going to do an easy run after work. It's going to be above freezing here today, which means the snowshoe trails might be very soft and slow. So, maybe I'll use the treadmill tonight and then snowshoe tomorrow morning, after the snow surfaces have re-frozen.

My weight dropped 2.5 pounds last week, but I still have a bunch more to lose to be at a good race weight for WS.

1 comment:

David Ray said...

Sounds like a good, but tough, weekend. Slow and steady on the weight loss and you'll be there.

Glad to hear the ankle held together. Strength matters.